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Unnoficial design concept for Windows 9

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Re: Unnoficial design concept for Windows 9

#41

Post by gabemart »

Freaky wrote: post #26
arethuza wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is even less appropriate on a server OS - I have no idea what they were thinking making Windows Server 2012 use the same touch oriented start menu replacement nightmare.... [Having to use a demo VM that has 2012 installed at the moment and I'm finding it incredibly annoying].

Been using 8 for about a year and have no problem with the start screen without a touch interface - the workflow is pretty much identical to 7: Press the Windows key and type part of the name of what you want, with the bonus that it's significantly faster at giving results. If you do end up having to select something in the menu, you now have more space to see what's available and modifying the layout to match your u…

> Been using 8 for about a year and have no problem with the start screen without a touch interface - the workflow is pretty much identical to 7: Press the Windows key and type part of the name of what you want, with the bonus that it's significantly faster at giving results.

A full-screen menu appearing on top of whatever I am working on completely breaks my flow. It's immensely distracting to me. As a result, I literally never use it. Instead I use Launchy [1] which is well behaved and keeps within the confines of a very small dialogue box.

That doesn't completely fix Windows 8, though - there's still a bunch of touch-orientated stuff that there's no native way to deactivate.

[1] http://www.launchy.net/

Re: Unnoficial design concept for Windows 9

#42

Post by frou_dh »

jpswade wrote: post #40
spdy wrote: post #2

Am i the only one who does not like "touch" on a desktop/laptop. It is not the revolutionary input method that makes everything magical. I want to think in boxes (desktops) not a fluid streams of desktop space. We need something else for the desktop.

Touch really lends itself to interfacing with objects. Using a mouse, in particular is a little bit foreign to our natural instincts.

We're already squarely in unnatural territory as soon as an LCD screen is involved.

Re: Unnoficial design concept for Windows 9

#44

Post by lb0 »

I don't agree with Microsoft.. but i also don't agree with statements like "Just NO NO AND NO...I want to be able to place my windows where I want...I know better than the OS how and where I want my windows" and "Wrong. Manual windows management is just what a professional needs." At least, it is not true for me. Manually placing and resizing windows, lowering and raising them, that is sooo much mouse work which reduces my productivity, i'm happy that in 99% of my workflow i do not need to do that kind of stuff anymore, but when i want the freedom i can just fall back to that ..

I think Microsoft got the point with their tablet-orientation fullscreen-only-apps, driven by touchscreen interfaces, but agreed, forcing everyone into that (currently coupled with the dual-old-desktop-mess) is ridiculous, user-hostile and typically Microsoft. This inofficial Windows 9 concept does not really help either.. IMHO they are looking for what tiling window managers (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiling_window_manager) have implemented since a long time (without being driven by the touchy-concepts), without taking away any freedom like Microsoft always does it, because MS thinks they know what's best for their users? :

• Provide automatic placement for windows, fullscreen, halfscreen, spiraled, any layout which makes sense for you. • Have the nice side-effect that they are much more controllable by keyboard only, increasing productivity even more (at least for developer's kind of work) • Provide the freedom, that if you want to, you can just take windows and resize them freely like default window managers

Introducing and playing with new concepts still is the right, however i think MS should stop forcing users into every new concept, but leave the freedom for the advanced user to customize to their style... if i have ever to go back to windows i hope there is a tiling window manager with the features i am accustomed to ;)

Re: Unnoficial design concept for Windows 9

#45

Post by josteink »

LoneWolf wrote: post #11
arethuza wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is even less appropriate on a server OS - I have no idea what they were thinking making Windows Server 2012 use the same touch oriented start menu replacement nightmare.... [Having to use a demo VM that has 2012 installed at the moment and I'm finding it incredibly annoying].

Now imagine having to manage servers everyday with that interface (yep I have to do it)

I guess it's a good excuse as any to finally learn powershell.

Re: Unnoficial design concept for Windows 9

#46

Post by manojlds »

klausjensen wrote: post #30
nextstep wrote: post #6

It's optimistic to think VLC will be available for Windows 9. It's still not out for Windows 8.

My Windows 8 laptop next to me is playing a video using VLC. What you meant to say was that VLC does not exist for the MetroUI (I forget what that POS is called these days).

Here you go - VLC doesn't have a Windows Store App.

Re: Unnoficial design concept for Windows 9

#47

Post by ethana »

LoneWolf wrote: post #22
ethana wrote: post #16

I like it. I think the 2+ decades old idea of resizable and draggable windows is becoming a nuisance. With 5+ windows overlaying each others, the desktop becomes a chaotic mess. People who say they need to be able to have multiple windows on screen should really be having multiple monitors if they don't already. Because even with high-res monitors, most productivity applications (IDEs,Excel,etc) are unusable anyway w…

I disagree, first of all I already have multiple monitors, and while my IDE is maximized on my main monitor, the secondary monitor has multiple windows with documentation, file manager and logs, or other stuff depending on what I am working on. About the drag&drop I have a problem with that, supose the application supports more than one place to drop with different functionality, how do you solve that?

I used to do this too actually. Throwing a bunch of windows to my secondary screen. But over time, I realized I don't use them at all over time. Sticky notes are all over it and it was just a mess.

Now I try to have only two things open at once to streamline my work flow. Everything in excess, I try to have it my IDE when possible using plugins.

Re: Unnoficial design concept for Windows 9

#48

Post by kbart »

Swinx43 wrote: post #5

Although this is a much better looking concept than what is currently available in Windows 8 I still do not understand how it solves anything for people who actually need to do development on these machines. I would hate to have to do development in an IDE such as Visual Studio or Eclipse while being restricted to this sort of interface. Trying to force a tablet interface on a desktop machine is simply not acceptable…

Reminds me of http://www.datamation.com/news/tech-comics-windows-8-1.html

I'm starting to get feeling, that Microsoft consciously abandons PC as a workstation with a fully functional OS model and moving towards dumb browser-only tablet-like terminal. And I bet that some cloud based, .NET like IDE for Windows developers is on their plans.

..and I'm sooo happy that I can do all my development work on Linux machine.

Re: Unnoficial design concept for Windows 9

#50

Post by josteink »

It looks fancy and pretty and all that, but I would probably hate using it for the same reason I hate using Windows 8 right now.

Yes. Manual window-management is tedious and in an ideal world should be obsolete, but I don't think this is the solution either.

Basically, I hate this automatic window-management more than I hate manual window-management and then we've not really gone anywhere useful.

For reference, I use tiling WMs in Linux and I'm happy with that, but I can see how that's not a solution for most people. We need to reach a middle-ground somehow.

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